NIU men’s basketball coach Brian Hammel had some mixed feelings about his team’s 86-73 victory Tuesday night over the Czechoslovakia Select Team at Evans Field House.

“We had some good parts,” said Hammel in his postgame interview. “In spurts, we did a good job, but we were not very consistent on defense.”

That was obvious several times in the second half when NIU’s lead went from 21 to 10 in a period of less than three minutes. In the same token, the lead was back to 16 just two minutes later.

Hammel figured that fatigue would be a factor in the game due to the intense practices he has been putting his team through.

“We have to practice hard now,” said shooting guard Mike Lipnisky, “so we can take it easy later.”

Fatigue did not seem to slow down Lipnisky as he had a game-high 28 points.

It did seem to bother point guard Randy Tucker, though. He played the entire first half with four points on 1-of-7 shooting. He came back in the second to score eight as he finished with 12 points and a team-high four assists.

“Randy is an outstanding basketball player,” boasted Hammel, who added that he was in a way relieved that Tucker did not shoot all that well because he had been so hot in practice. Hammel was glad to see the team do well when Tucker was not performing up to par.

Not up to par was the perfect description for the Huskie transition game. Too many times, the Czechs were seen on fast breaks off defensive rebounds.

When 6-9 center Roman Basta is driving on the 5-11 Tucker, something is wrong. That was one of Hammel’s main concerns.

Another area Hammel was concerned with was selfish ball. While he did say that the Huskies had “a good shot selection,” he did have to call a timeout because players “lost vision of their roles.”

He said some players saw others scoring and wanted to get into the action as well when they should have been doing other things like setting picks.

All in all it was a good game for the Huskies, who beat the Czechs in every statistical category except for steals.